Eclipse - Book One: The Frog in the Well
by Euclid Crash
Summary: One day, a very long time ago, a turtle came across a small well where a frog reigned supreme. "Come join me," the frog croaked smugly, "There isn't a better place in the world than here." "Why not journey to the sea?" the turtle asked after he found he could not fit, "Living in this well can't possibly compare." Curious, the frog began asking his questions concerning this 'sea'...


Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. _Naruto_ and its components are under the dual proprietary ownership of Kishimoto Masashi and _Weekly Shounen Jump _published by Shueisha Incorporated. I do not own anything nor will I claim to.

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><p><em>Dedicated to<em>

That last breath of belief

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><p><em><strong>Author's Foreword<strong>_

"The world is made up of stories, not atoms."

-Muriel Rukeyser

If you're reading this in some way - some how - you've been touched by, inspired by, or maybe even insulted by the manga/anime _Naruto _by Kishimoto Masashi. It's fan-fiction; what else would you expect? You're here for many a reason, but, whatever that reason, it came from Kishimoto. It's been said repeatedly by many people in many different ways that the first step in writing is to steal from the best. Granted that by it's very nature fan-fiction is _literally_ stealing an already existing world from its author, it gives us – the fans – a way to shape and mold that world into what we think it should be, or should have been.

Personally, I find _Naruto_ to be one of the most interesting subjects of fan-fiction as a whole. The width and breadth of the world Kishimoto gave to us has honestly barely been tapped. I find that to be a mark of a great author: to be able to give us a story within a larger, unexplored world. Near the end it sort of felt as if Kishimoto started to cram as much glue into the plot holes he had created, but that's kind of the fault of running a 15-year story with several different editors and collaborators. Stuff happens. Regardless of _Naruto_'s faults in detail, its greater triumphs are its world and its characters, which unfortunately were not as developed and utilized as I imagine Kishimoto wanted them to be (and, as of revising this in December, has outright stated).

That's why _Naruto_ is a fantastic source for fan-fiction. Under utilized characters in a vastly unexplored world gives fan-fiction authors their most powerful tools. We have the outlines, the general idea, and the structure and with those – in addition to the absence of pictures – we can focus on the detail that was left out of the original. We can make it as big or as small as we want it to be; I prefer larger myself. _Naruto_ had – _has –_ remarkable stories that either were left untold or can be created without much change to its characters' or world's core. In the familiar we are able to discover what could have been for want of a nail.

For want of that nail, I can try and give you something new and exciting from a story you already know and love (or hate, it happens). That's why I set out to create _Eclipse_ from the beginning: to be different. I read and read from author after author, seeing the same familiar tropes and sets, some good, some bad, but all carrying the same desire: to create that from which was loved. This is _my_ version of that. I hope you will stick with me through the undoubtedly fast and slow updates ahead, and maybe we'll all see something we haven't seen before.

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><p><em><strong>Eclipse<strong>_

_Book One:_

_The Frog in the Well_

Euclid Crash

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><p><em><strong>Prologue - Father Time<strong>_

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><p>Murasaki was an unexpectedly remote city carved from the side of a lush valley of violets, a valley whose location tended to a rather bustling hub of trade, information, socialization, and – quite unsurprisingly – layabouts and booze-hounds. The surprisingly awkward location gave rise to many who sought refuge from the typical high- and low-lights of contemporary cities and villages; particularly those whose professions lay far on the other side of "law-abiding". One could never underestimate the diligence of the depraved and negligent in a world where shinobi reigned as the law of the shadows. By their very nature shinobi were men and women – even sometimes children – of infinite patience and tenacity. If one truly wished to make their bed in sin, they had to have equal or greater ability than those policing them.<p>

It was within this unconventional order that lay the outlier: A man so engrossed in his own greatness he would literally use the word "great" as a moniker. Not to say that was his _only_ one; Jiraiya, the Great Toad Sage of Mount Byouku, was never at a loss for colorful descriptions of himself. At this particular time, however, if one looked into the third story, second-window-to-the-left of the inn, _Murakami_, the only thought would be, "...That's a really big porcupine."

Of course, that would be an outsider's understanding of the situation. At the same time, if one were able to glimpse the thoughts of such a large, white porcupine the only moniker it would give itself would be: "Flaccid". The giant prickles of white spikes shivered uncontrollably as this one word floated in and out and around until it became the very nature of those quivering spikes themselves. On the other side of those limp spikes sat what looked like a very naked, middle-aged man with interestingly placed red lines down the sides of his face – though at the moment those red lines, starting from the corner of his eyeballs, were being masked by the uncontrollable trickle of tears pouring out and onto the hardwood. The focus of those now-swollen eyes was clear: a limp member.

To give some additional insight to the still well-toned man attached to said member, Jiraiya had three very significant flaws to his character. One was booze. The sage loved his sake. Second was money. A fool and his money are soon parted, after all, and while Jiraiya was no inherent fool his previous flaw tended to flow into the next. He shared both of these traits with a very old acquaintance, but refused to acknowledge that fact due to his personal mental acrobatics. The last, and probably more pressing flaw at that time, was women. These three traits were, in fact, dubbed inexcusable for a proper shinobi. Thing was, at least according to Jiraiya himself, he was _technically_ more of a sage than a real shinobi anyway. This thought process was fairly indicative of one whose youth was built upon the idea that the rules don't necessarily apply in some cases. The very same thought process was, more-or-less, the cause of most of Jiraiya's own failings in life. All of which leads into why, exactly, he had been staring at his penis for the better part of half an hour.

All three flaws had collected into a veritable storm of indecent behavior for the sage earlier in the evening. Due to a miscommunication with one of his connection's handlers he had found himself sitting alone at the _Murakami_ bar drinking himself into an early night. Despite the heavy drinking, Jiraiya was, above all else, a master of whatever art he chose that day. In this case, relating his "incredibly gallant" adventures to a woman of modicum attractiveness who sat two stools down. The drunk sage was convinced she had descended from heaven just to hear his tales of heroism. She laughed at his jokes, she winked slyly at the appropriate moments, and, as is expected of a woman of the night, followed him upstairs as the drunken master crooned continuously about himself. To the casual observer, or the bartender in this case, this was definitely going to end badly for the man.

Approximately twenty minutes after the door shut behind the two, a half-dressed woman with an obtrusively large sack of money in her palm walked out with a somewhat pitying look splayed across her shockingly average features. Fifty-three minutes thereafter was when Jiraiya actually noticed that his money was gone. He had been so involved with his lack of performance (which, of course, "_never_ happened") the opening and shutting of the door hadn't even phased him. This also explained the loud wailing coming from the third story, second-window-to-the-left that woke up a neighboring babe. The two wails became one for a brief moment before Jiraiya angrily clothed himself to the minimum and flopped onto his futon. Despite his own role in the matter, the crying child felt like it just kept hitting higher and higher pitches, and was causing the half-drunk man even more distress and agitation. However, before the grown man starting pitching an actual fit himself the responsible parties helped calm the child down to a soothing droll. Jiraiya, pinching the bridge of his nose, sighed heavily.

"What in the living hell am I still doing here..?" the still half-drunk man muttered to himself, rolling onto the side facing the window, his eyes now distant and gazing halfheartedly at the fox moon glowing subtly amongst a smattering of clouds and stars. Jiraiya hated hearing the sound of babies crying. Quite possibly more than anything he could rationally think of. The sound only held the reminder of one of his greatest failures as a man and as a friend: his inability to be present for a child in its time of need. In actuality, he hardly ever thought about it anymore – the pain was far too great. Now, Jiraiya was faced with both his failures of his past and of his present. He could only dread what the future was holding for him at the end of this string of inscrutable misery.

Aside from being a great many things – most according to himself – Jiraiya was, above-all-else, a saboteur. A spy for his country and leaders that never backed down from anything that would put him in harm's way. He only avoided emotional harm, and at excessive length; he'd been hurt and crushed far more than most in one lifetime. It was due to this avoidance that his current predicament was becoming increasingly miserable. Over it all hung a looming dread. The fear that everything Jiraiya had worked so long for his own and his country's benefit would soon be lost into the sands of time. Placing a hand over his eyes, the sage laughed mirthlessly while talking to himself, "I can't believe I'm seriously considering asking Tsunade for tips on youth...What a vain princess."

Sitting up, placing his back to the window sill and allowing the moon's flashing rays dance on the floor in front of him, Jiraiya contemplated his next move. Over everything, he needed money. Which, in turn, meant that he had to go home – at least for a time. He hated going back to Konohagakure much for the same reasons he hated children. Moving his gaze from the flickering moonlight to the shadows of the ceiling he contemplated time. "Should be about time for the new graduating classes by the time I get back.."

It was like a rippling shock wave coursed through his already shook skull. He squinted. Then raised an eye and brow. Then both brows. The rumbling coming from his throat slowly poured out his widening grin as ideas began to take form. It was idiotic; absolutely absurd where his train of thought was heading. But he couldn't shake it – for the first time in his life, The Gallant Jiraiya was seriously putting thought into his future. It was more-than-likely the lessening effects of the sake combined with the ludicrous circumstances he found himself in, but he still couldn't rid himself of the myriad of thoughts crashing through his mind. It was as if his brain had finally started to work after a very, _very_ long vacation.

The sage grinned and smacked one fist into another palm. "All right! I've got the time, and I sure as hell don't want everything to wind up imploding on me. It's about time The Gallant Jiraiya pays his adorable runts a spectacular return!"

As the moon sank lower into the sky, the uproarious laughter of the Toad Sage woke up several more children.

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><p>Author's note: A fox moon, or kogetsu, is the Japanese term for a crescent moon.<p>

Well, that certainly wasn't "a week or so" was it? Sorry about that, right after I wrote that a whole bunch of conflicting events occurred that wound up separating me from working for quite some time. I give this to you as a teasing, belated whatever-it-is-you-celebrate-this-time-of-year gift with the promise that more has already been sketched out and will be revised and posted sometime around the beginning of 2015. It's just in notebooks, and my handwriting is really, really terrible.

Anyway, hope everyone's had a wonderful holiday season and the will to persevere a few more, short days.

As an aside, I really wanted to make the format look like an actual novel, but requirements disallow that sort of thing so that's why it's all crammed in up there. I apologize if that bothers you, but don't hate the player - hate the game.


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